You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Giving Advice To Musicians Without Being a Jerk

Episode Date: November 18, 2020

It's another live edition of You'll Hear It where Peter and Adam take your questions. Today, Peter and Adam talk about giving less-experienced musicians advice, lesser-known pianists, and whether or not to learn classical music.Interested in more music advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase. And be sure to check out our All Access Pass - every course from Open Studio on every instrument.Wednesday's Open Studio Live Events:1:00 PM - Adam's Daily Guided Practice Session (for Members Only)6:00 PM - Edu Ribeiro + Jason Marsalis | Drum Conversations + Q&A on YouTubeFor the rest of this week's calendar, follow this linkLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Pickinstone says, how about some recommendations on some lesser-known pianists who generally operated in the background, thinking like Duke Pearson, Mal Waldron, and Duke Jordan? We got the Duke's covered. That's right. Why not Duke Ellicane? Is he too mainstream for you? Picketstone? What's up? Yeah, I guess he wasn't in the background.

How about some, those are all great. I mean, Mal Waldron, yeah, Duke Pearson. Duke Pearson has some of the baddest, as a best, Blue Note record. that are kind of overlooked both for design and music and some incredible ones I can't think of any of them right now but those are really good

Duke Jordan was amazing I'm not as familiar with his playing but not because it wasn't great other lesser now let's think of some other lesson okay I'll tell you one that just popped into my mind I don't know why Anthony Wansy oh yeah yeah of course so Anthony's like right about my age maybe exactly it's amazing

there's a ton of living players that could deserve a shout out. Every time I hear him, I mean, I've always been such a fan. And I mean, you know, we've known each other since maybe even like teenagers, but somebody like that is, you know, great, maybe lesser known. I just saw with a duo with Mike Moreno was John Coward. John Coward.

That you played with on Brian Owen's last record. John Coward's amazing. Sounds so good. Sounds so, so good. Yeah. Sounds so good. Don't you agree? If anybody, if everybody listening who loves jazz piano hasn't taken a deep YouTube dive on Dave Kakowski. Oh my God.

Go do it. It's so much fun. You won't regret it. He's so great. He's so insane. The way he plays. It's like a jazz piano Muppet. Yeah.

Yeah. Joey D. Francesco. What about him? On piano. On piano, on Oregon, of course. On trumpet. Yeah. You know?

Okay. Did you know he was blocks from here on Saturday night performing at the show? No, he was. Yes, he was shocked. I saw it on YouTube. And I'm like, I knew he was supposed to play. I thought they were going to be. doing a live stream, which they were from.

I feel like he's so super famous, though. Is he under the radar? He might be. Maybe he's not. Maybe he has a pianist, though. As a pianist, it's a good pianist, yeah. Yeah, he played with his trio at, um. But, you know, Alex, to your point about, like, people in the Duke, Pearson, Mal Waldron

sort of zone, I would take some thought. Because for me, too, it's like searching for those gems and old recordings. Oh, James Williams. Yeah. James Williams. that maybe not totally lesser known but i mean dude still is not lesser known yeah yeah totally but james ways i think was was one of not only one of the best players of that generation but also just one of the best

teachers and mentors i i didn't i got to be around him some and bradley's hang hung with them a little bit you know kind of early 90s but i mean mainly just he was so encouraging for me and all the young pianist in new york did you come into contact when you were up there no not at all Not at all. You know, and there are so many players that are very famous in the canon, but aren't, like, level one famous. Like, I would put, like, Cedar Walton and Tommy Flanagan in that category. Hank Jones, even, you know. He's so great.

He's not exactly under the radar. He's not, well, none of those guys are under the radar, but they're often overlooked as far as, like, you know, the McCoy's. Kenny Barron is, but, yeah, they're all super famous, but. Well, I think, too, maybe if we think about. Richie Byrack. Yeah. I'll put him in there. If you think about Lyle Mayer.

It's not on the radar But like level one players That aren't known At level one Not that they're not known It's just not really known Super influential Influential but just not like

On that McCoy You know Mount Rushmore Herbie Yeah Stuff Let's see here So Duncan has a really interesting question Any tips on how to give

Less experienced musicians advice without talking down to them and how to act respectfully around more experienced musicians without seeming like a groupie. That's a great question, Duncan. Duncan Wilson. It's under Pickinstone's question there. Okay. Any tips on how to give less experienced musicians advice

without talking down to them and how to act respectfully around more experienced musicians without seeming like a groupie? So first of all, Duncan, you know, I think the real answer to this is to, is to, it can be applied to both, honestly. And that's to be honest, you know, without coming across as condescending or patting the lesser. You don't want to pat the lesser musician on the head and you don't want to pat the more experienced musician on the bum, right?

You don't want to, you know, like, overdo it either way. Just be perfectly frank with them about what you like or don't. I mean, that's just being yourself and being honest and treating them with respect no matter which end of that. that spectrum they're on. That's what, and you know what? The greatest musicians are so good at this. Like, it seems like the better the musician because they're always dealing with sort of,

quote unquote, lesser musicians, right? They have experience at it. They don't want to be left, they don't want to like ostracize themselves. Right. From the hang or the, you know what I mean? So they're so good in embracing everybody. Well, and then they just kind of forget that not everybody's great.

Like they're so used to it that they're like, oh, everybody's like this. It's easy for everybody. You know who it is? It's the people that are less secure. in themselves that have have that really struggle with this and talk down yeah to musicians they don't deem to be as good as them and kiss the ass of the of the heavy hitter you know what I mean right so yeah and I mean I think that there's um you know you kind of answered the question a little

bit with the without talking down to them um but also applying that to when you're when you're the less experienced one and you're talking to like somebody you don't want to be like a group there's a fine balance and a fine line to get in there where you're not so like oh i'm not worthy but you're not also like oh yeah we're all in this together i mean like i think that respect should be shown to like i'm not going to get around mccoy or herbie um or any of these greats especially that are my elders and be like yeah we're all and acting like we're all one no because i mean we we wouldn't be here if it weren't for them and so that's never going to change you know what I mean. But that's a different vibe than

grossly, you know, exaggerating, putting them on a pedestal. Something to keep in mind with this. A pedestal, which is a combination of a pedestal and a stool. A pedestal. Something to keep in mind with this, which is, this has been completely true in my experience, is when there are less experienced musicians or musicians that maybe aren't as good of a player as you,

they know something you don't know. They're good at something you're not good at. That's almost a guarantee. I've met so many musicians who are starting out that know more about a certain musician or an era or a stride piano than I do. You know what I mean? It's like there's always something to learn from anybody.

And actually it's vice versa with musicians who are way better than you. There's something of value that you can bring to this conversation that you know that you're more of an expert on than even they are. And so, you know, consider that too. Well, and I think too this thing of without seeming like a groupie, the way, actually it's okay to be a groupie. So like if you're around like Sonny Rollins and you're a saxophone player, I mean pretty much any saxophone player on the planet is going to be at least a small step, if not a huge step below

Sonny Rollins in terms of pedestal. So, I mean, the thing is, you can be a groupie for sunny stuff. You don't need to be a groupie for Sunny Rollins personally. That gets creepy, you know? Yeah. But, like, Sunny Rollins is actually a groupie for his stuff, you know? And actually, I've barely been around Sunny, so I'm not sure if this is, I am sure it's true for him, but I'm thinking of some other, like Herbie. Herbie's very much like, oh, like he doesn't, he's so giving and he's so humble in a way. Like he doesn't feel like this is my music, my Herbieisms.

He's just like, yeah, I play Herbie stuff because I'm Herbie, but other people play it too. It's all good, you know? And so it's like you can be a groupie for the music in general. We're all groupies. And so even these great legends are actually groupies too. So just focus on the music. Just don't be like, I'm a groupie for you and start talking about their home address and phone number and that kind of stuff because that gets creepy. Nicholas has an irrelevant question that kind of goes to what you were talking about earlier.

Should I be learning classical music too? I've always hated the way classical musicians approach jazz and I don't want to sound like them, but everyone expects me to know classical stuff. And, you know, first of all, so Keith Jarrett sounds like he knows a lot about classical music. And he acts like a classical musician. He sounds pretty good at jazz. Brad Meldow and Ethan Iverson have a background in that and sound great at it, a jazz, that is. And classical.

I mean, Keith Jarrett's classical stuff and Brad's stuff. Yeah. I haven't heard Ethan. Has he recorded classical stuff? Ethan? I mean, they did the Stravinsky, so I assume he has some kind of relationship with that

and from his blog, you know, I assume he's a bit of a historian. So I would say it's what you get out of it. You know, yes, you don't want to sound like you're playing a Claude Bowling Toot Suite when you play jazz, for sure. Toot de Sweet. Toot to Sweet.

But. It's out to Claude. But it sounds like, Nicholas, it sounds like you know better. Right, exactly. You're all good. Yeah, I mean, music is music. I mean, that's corny to say that, but it's the more I do this and the more I certainly

spend a lot of time in the classical world and I've got a lot of love for that music. But it's such a, the more I learn about classical music and jazz music and R&B and all the things I love, the more alike they are. There goes great. Just great music is great music. And I think the attitudes that surround music, I mean, look, we've got a lot of pretentious, overly primped jazz players, too.

Oh, 100%. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Wow, that woke up the giant over there. No, they could be, they're the best, but they're the worst. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, so don't think the classical musicians have that attitude cornered, but what we're looking for is, you know, an authentic representation of who we are,

and that's not going to be stained or sullied by the attitude of a type of music. if you're engaging with the music for music's sake. Way down here, Asher has a question, Hey, Peter and Adam, what would be your quick steps to learning jazz piano for a beginner? Like, learn these, these, and these, so now you can go book a duo gig with Chick-Korea. Well, Asher, that's not going to happen anytime soon.

For any of us. Wait, be careful what you say, because I already saw later on Joe, I already guessed what we were going to say, which he might be right on. Joe is right. They're going to say jazz piano jumpstart and jazz piano for beginner courses

at Open Studio, which is true. And Asher, by the way, and everybody, I mean, this is a perfect transition. We're doing our little Black Friday sale. We're starting a little early. Yeah, if you go to Open Studio Jazz, I'm going to put it in the comments here. Open StudioJazz.com slash YHI.

You can choose what you pay for the piano access pass. And Asher, you can see all of our Open Studio courses. Quick plug for Open Studio, which is, by the way, sponsor of this podcast. But that is true. And I would say, Asher, you know what you should start doing immediately is putting together playlist for yourself, listening to as much of the classic

jazz piano recordings that you can. If you want to play with Chick, learn Chick's book, learn his discography, and start transcribing. Transcribe, you know, we often recommend like Freddie Freeloader,

Witten Kelly's solo as a great entry point to transcribe on piano. Start a regular transcription habit and you will get good fast. If you transcribe every day, you will get good fast. That's just how it is.

I like it when you get dogmatic like that. Well, we had our, We had our Monday transcription club. Yeah. Our Monday transcriber club today after the daily guide of practice session. So I amped on on transcribing right now. Right. Good.

I put the URL up there. Do you see that? I did see that. Asher says, I swear, my mom is going to scream if I spend another $25 on a music course. Well, that's why you want to, I don't know. Are the memberships? Are we doing Black Friday for them too? Choose what you pay, Asher.

So get on it now. Get on it now. Yeah. Yeah, see if you can get the membership. I don't even know if we're offering those. But if we are grab that because we don't normally discount those. And then you get everything. You won't have to spend $25 and your mom won't be mad.

But I would just say also, and let me just look here again, quick steps. Okay, be careful with quick steps to learning jazz piano for a beginner. This is not to discourage anyone or to be like, oh, this is so precious. You can't because we actually believe in this is part of the courses. and it's part of like if you're just hanging out with us, we would tell you the same thing, that you can make some big breakthroughs early. But what we believe in,

and I think it's very possible whether you do it alone with us or another teacher or just figure it out from YouTube or whatever, is that there's a way to learn jazz that's not necessarily quick steps, but is a very deep way of learning that's so satisfying because the process is so fun. And tapping into the community of others trying to learn, that just gives you,

you know, some wind in your sales. But the idea being that if you're learning the right way, you're not so much worried about the quick steps and the hacks. I mean, what kind of a podcast would we be if we advertise seven hacks to get better or some crap like that? Would be a couple of hacks is what we've been. Have we done that before? Yeah, we have.

But really, you know, the idea of like quick steps, we want to be careful with that because we want to do big fundamental steps. You'll have some quick breakthroughs. That's great. And like we really believe in ways of learning. music directly from the source. Like I saw somebody, they're going to remain nameless because I don't like, I'm not a hater.

Did you know that, Adam? I did know that. You know that. You know that. You know that. You aspire not to hate. I'm not a hater. But I do get dog mad.

I'm a carer. If I have any faults, it's that I care too much. Okay. No, but the idea that somebody had some kind of jazz tutorial out there. And they literally, before they played. Oh, you can play some jazz piano. Yeah. Well, no, no, I don't even think it was, well, it might have been that.

But it was somebody, it doesn't even matter who it is. they basically had a diagram with like how you had to understand theory it was so complicated I didn't get it I'm like I know jazz theory and I can't understand it and this was for beginner jazz piano

so you don't need that but what we try to do is just get you into an authentic approach to learning where the process is so fun that what happens is it's slow but deep and then every once in a while that could be every week it could sometimes be every other day

it's not going to be every day but you get these breakthroughs that are so deep and satisfying where you start to really lock things in in a way that's not intellectual. It's on the creative side. It's on the fun side. Does that make sense? It does. It makes a lot of sense, man.